Kyle Flood complained last week that Rutgers tried to schedule an SEC team for a non-conference game, but found no takers.

The cynic sees this: what’s the SEC afraid of?

The realist sees this: It’s a no-win situation with nothing to gain when playing a team from the American Athletic (formerly Big East) Conference. If you win, you’re supposed to win; if you lose, it’s a major upset.

A year from now, when Rutgers moves to the Big Ten, a non-con game with the Scarlet Knights suddenly becomes more attractive. Until then, Rutgers and Louisville—which moves to the ACC next year—enter this season with the understanding that their non-conference schedule will do nothing but hurt their cause in the polls/BCS race.

Five worst games

Quick hits

— You’ve heard the scenarios by now. Louisville, everyone’s offseason darling, plays a non-conference schedule that could keep them from playing in the BCS National Championship Game.

To this I say: people, it’s not the non-conference games, it’s the conference games. It’s bad enough that Louisville plays four nobodies (and the includes Kentucky, until further notice) in non-con games; it’s worse that Louisville plays in the AAC for one final season.

Understand this: Louisville’s best win this season will be Rutgers—and if we think about all those years of BCS busters, the narrative eventually turned to strength of conference. No matter what Boise State or TCU or Utah did in non-conference games, it was always about playing in the WAC or Mountain West. It will be the same this fall with Louisville, because no poll voter (that includes the “computer” polls) sees the AAC as a BCS league—no matter what the leaders of the sport try to feed us.

— SMU may as well be back in the old Southwest Conference, playing non-con games against at Texas A&M, at TCU and Texas Tech. Throw in a regular season game against Houston, that’s one-third of the schedule vs. old SWC teams.

So the Mustangs move up in conference play—in theory, anyway—and play three state rivals in non-con games that will do more for recruiting than anything else.

— There’s an interesting dynamic brewing the AAC, one that could lead to some intriguing conference race drama. Both UCF and USF have the talent to win big in the AAC this fall, and possibly win the conference (that’s right, Louisville; it won’t be a cakewalk).

About 100 miles separate the two schools along the Interstate-4 corridor, but they haven’t played since 2008 because USF of the Big East believed it had nothing to gain by playing UCF of Conference USA. Now they’re conference rivals, and now a bitter rivalry that was ended because USF thought it was better than UCF, is set to get full-blown nasty. That last game in 2008? USF won 31-24 in overtime.